Undernews is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington during all or part of one quarter of America's presidencies and edited alternative journals since 1964. The Review has been on the web since 1995. See main page for full contents

Your editor has been a
musician for many decades. He started the first band his Quaker
school ever had and played drums with bands up until 1980 when
he switched to stride piano. He had his own band until the mid-1990s
and has played with the New Sunshine Jazz Band, Hill City Jazz
Band, Not So Modern Jazz Band and the Phoenix Jazz Band.

APEX BLUESSam
playing with the Phoenix Jazz Band at the Central Ohio Jazz festival
in 1990. Joining the band is George James on sax. James, then
84, had been a member of the Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller
orchestras and hadappeared on some 60 records.More
notes on James

August 15, 2009

Huffington Post - Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean fired one of the clearest warning shots at hesitant Democratic lawmakers, insisting that if the party was unable to produce a health care bill with a public plan, there would be electoral consequences. "I do think there will be primaries as the result of all this, if the bill doesn't pass with a public option," Dean said, in a phone interview with the Huffington Post.The former Vermont governor added the caveat that he thought "cooler heads" would ultimately prevail and that a government run option for insurance coverage would be passed. But his remarks are some of the most threatening yet to be directed at Democrats from within the party.